^ M. Maeterlinck, Ruysbroeck and the Mystics, 50. ST. JOHN (2) — II
i62 WHERE HE DELIGHTS TO DWELL
^ We must begin to love Christ before we can keep His word. Christ is the lawgiver of God's world, and before we can obey His laws we must be on terms of amity with Himself. This implies that we know Him to be at peace with us ; for, as we are made, we cannot love where we dread. God's friendship must come before God's service. Now, the very opposite of this is frequently taught — that there is to be service before there can be friendship, and that peace can be purchased only by obedience. We need not so much consult the Bible to see the falsehood of this as look into our own hearts, where we may feel the impossibility of doing anything that will bear the look of service in a spiritual sense until the heart is in it.^
God's will is — the bud of the rose for your hair,
The ring for your hand and the pearl for your breast;
God's will is — the mirror that makes you look fair. No wonder you whisper: "God's will is the best."
But what if God's will were the famine, the flood ? —
And were God's will the cofhn shut down in your face ?—
And were God's will the worm in the fold of the bud, Instead of the picture, the light, and the lace?
Were God's will the arrow that flieth by night, Were God's will the pestilence walking by day,
The clod in the valley, the rock on the height — I fancy "God's will" would be harder to say.
God's will is — your own will ? What honour have you For having your own will, awake or asleep ?
Who praises the lily for keeping the dew,
When the dew is so sweet for the lily to keep?
God's will unto me is not music or wine.
With helpless reproaching, with desolate tears,
God's will I resist, for God's will is divine; And I — shall be dust to the end of my years.
God's will is — not mine. Yet one night I shall lie Very still at His feet, where the stars may not shine.
"Lo! I am well pleased," I shall hear from the sky; Because — it is God's will I do, and not mine.-
» John Ker. ' Sarah M. P.. Piatt.
ST. JOHN XIV. 23 163
II.
The Keward is Divine Manifestation.
Eevelation on the part of God presupposes a certain disposition on the part of man. Love to Christ — love to the Son of God, who has brought Himself within the range of human affection — brings to the believer the love of His Father. Then follows that inward, abiding, transforming fellowship in which the Christian sees God more clearly as he reflects His likeness a little less dimly. There is brought to pass that twofold fulness of the spiritual life which unites two worlds : Christ lives in the believer and the believer lives in Christ.
^ God has not set up an arbitrary test of manifestation, He has taken the common course of our life, and given it applications to Himself. I might challenge the worshipper of Nature to say whether his god does not demand precisely the same condition of manifestation. The mountain is saying, If any man love me, I will manifest myself unto him ; the sun holds the same language, so does the sea, so does every leaf of the forest.^
^ Christ will come unto thee, and shew thee His own con- solation, if thou prepare for Him a worthy mansion within thee.
All His glory and beauty is from within, and there He delighteth Himself.
The inward man He often visiteth ; and hath with him sweet discourses, pleasant solace, much peace, familiarity exceeding wonderful.
0 faithful soul, make ready thy heart for this Bridegroom, that He may vouchsafe to come unto thee, and to dwell within thee.
For thus saith He, "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." 2
1. The manifestation is in union with the Father. — Jesus shows Himself to the obedient heart in indissoluble union with the Father. Look at the majesty, and, except upon one hypothesis, the insane presumption, of such words as these : " If a man love Tne, my Father will love him : " as if identifying love to Himself
* J. Parker.
' Thomas k, Eempis, 0/ the Imitation of Christy bk. ii. ch, i
i64 WHERE HE DELIGHTS TO DWELL
with love to the Father. And look at that wondrous union, the consciousness of which speaks in " We will come." " We will come," together, hand in hand, if one may so say ; or rather, His coming is the Father's coming. Just as in heaven, so closely are they represented as united that there is but one throne "for God and the Lamb " ; so on earth, so closely are they represented as united that there is but one coming of the Father in the Son.
^ This is the only belief, as it seems to me, that will keep this generation from despair and moral suicide. The question for this generation is. Is it possible for men to know God ? Science, both of material things and of inward experiences, is more and more unanimous in its proclamation ; " Behold ! we know not any- thing;" and the only attitude to take before that great black vault above us is to say, " We know nothing." The world has learned half of a great verse of the Gospel : " No man hath seen God at any time ; " nor can see Him. If the world is not to go mad, if hearts are not to be tortured into despair, if morality and enthusiasm and poetry and everything higher and nobler than the knowledge of material phenomena and their sequences is not to perish from the earth, the world must learn the next half of the verse, and say, " The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." Christ shows Himself in indissoluble union with the Father.^